Fidesmo and Haikara collaborate on the future of smartwatches — Fidesmo — “Haikara is the world’s thinnest smartwatch that lasts for up to a week on one charge. It allows you to change your watch face to match your outfit and mood, and it looks great on your wrist. By using Fidesmo’s platform Haikara will enable their customers to pay, access their office building or use public transport.”
Smartwatch
UK challenger bank Starling adds support for Fitbit Pay
Digital challenger bank Starling is the first to support Fitbit Pay in the UK — City AM — “Customers of digital challenger Starling will be able to pay using their Fitbit smartwatch as it becomes the first bank in the UK to support Fitbit Pay… Starling added support for Apple Pay, which works on both the Apple Watch and iPhones, over the summer and Android Pay in September.”
White paper sets out how fashion brands can add payments, loyalty, ticketing and more to wearable devices
Fashion brands looking to include payments capabilities in their wearable devices need solutions that are pre-certified, inexpensive, easy to implement and offer the wearer the ability to quickly and easily add their choice of payment, transit, loyalty and identity cards throughout the lifetime of their watch or fashion accessory, wearables platform provider Fidesmo explains in a new white paper which is now available to download free of charge from the NFC World Knowledge Centre... More
Fitbit Pay goes live in Switzerland
Switzerland becomes first European country to allow Visa payments on Fitbit smartwatch — Telecompaper — “Visa is introducing its mobile payment function for the Fitbit smartwatch in Switzerland, the first European country to get the service… To pay with Fitbit Ionic, the Visa card of a partner card issuer must be loaded into the Fitbit companion application. Currently, this is possible for customers of Cornercard. BonusCard and other banks will follow.”
Garmin enters the payments market with Vivoactive smartwatch
Garmin has unveiled a GPS-enabled smartwatch that includes an NFC contactless payments service called Garmin Pay which supports cards from both Visa and Mastercard and enables the wearer to “make secure payments from the watch, no phone or wallet required.”... More
Samsung challenges Apple Watch with its new Gear Sport smartwatch
Samsung challenges Apple Watch with its new Gear Sport smartwatch — Yahoo Finance — “Like the Gear S3, the Gear Sport also includes NFC wireless capabilities to allow for Samsung Pay transactions. You can use the watch as a remote control for Samsung’s GearVR virtual-reality headset.”
Fitbit unveils Ionic smartwatch with Mastercard, Visa, AmEx and Starbucks payments support
Fitness wearable maker Fitbit has launched Ionic, a smartwatch that will combine health and fitness functions with the ability to make contactless Visa, Mastercard and American Express payments as well as payments using the wearer’s Starbucks Card account... More
Bank issues primary school kids with NFC smartwatches that let them make payments and track pocket money
Singapore’s POSB bank has provided 6,000 primary school children with smartwatches equipped with fitness tracking and mobile payments capabilities in a bid to “teach students how to save and spend wisely by helping them track their savings and spending habits digitally.”... More
Swatch partners with eleven Chinese banks for second-generation payments watch
Four new NFC smart watches that make use of China UnionPay’s cloud-based payments service have been unveiled in Shanghai by Swatch Group CEO Nick Hayek... More
Sony’s semi-smartwatch now has a smaller version and a leather strap with NFC
Sony’s semi-smartwatch now has a smaller version and a leather strap with NFC — The Verge — “Sony is also launching a new leather strap in all three sizes — you lose the steel band’s notification functionality, but it still has NFC — and is starting to sell the steel band separately as well for people who want to mix and match… The Three Hands Square “head” and steel band will go on sale later this month, but the leather bands won’t be available until late December.”
ABN Amro pilots wearable payments with select customers
A select group of ABN Amro customers has begun piloting payments using NFC-enabled rings supplied by Kerv and smartwatches... More
Mahindra Comviva and Rambus sign up to Visa’s token service provider
PARTNER NEWS: NFC World partners Mahindra Comviva and Rambus are among the 13 companies that signed up to participate in Visa’s token service provider (TSP) platform earlier this month... More
KISA to unveil bio authentication for mobile banking in 2018
KISA to unveil bio authentication for mobile banking in 2018 — Korea Herald — “Korea Internet & Security Agency is developing bio authentication for mobile banking to commercialize it by late 2018… The biometric authentication reads heart rates and electrocardiograms on a user’s smartwatch, which sends the information to his or her smartphone. The smartphone is then unlocked with the user’s fingerprint which enables the use of mobile banking.”
Researchers develop system that lets smartphones interact with objects using electromagnetic sensing
Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University’s Future Interfaces Group have developed a working concept that enables smartphones to interact with smart home appliances using electromagnetic emission sensing technology. More
Iran launches NFC payments
Iran launches NFC payments — Financial Tribune — “The Central Bank of Iran is developing new mobile payment systems so people may use their smartphones or watches for making purchases, said the director of CBI’s IT Department.”
Kiwis warm to mobile, wearable and biometric payments
Nearly six in ten New Zealanders (59%) think mobile payments will be the next major payments technology to take off, followed by payments using wearables like smartwatches (47%) and biometrics such as facial recognition and fingerprints (42%), research released by Mastercard reveals. More
Samsung Pay rolls out to Gear S3 in Korea as Samsung Pay Mini launches
Samsung Pay is now available on the Gear S3 smartwatch in Korea and Samsung Pay Mini — the pared-down version of the mobile payment service — has also gone live in the country... More
Samsung Pay launches in Sweden and the UAE, enters early access in Hong Kong and Switzerland
Samsung Pay has expanded to four additional markets with official launches in Sweden and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and early access launches in Hong Kong and Switzerland. The service has also been made available on Samsung’s Gear S3 smartwatch in Russia, Sweden and the UAE in addition to its availability on the Gear S3 in the US, Singapore and Australia. More
Australian banks lose fight to gain access to NFC functionality in Apple iPhones
The group of Australian banks seeking stronger negotiating powers with Apple over the NFC technology within its iPhone handsets have been denied access to it by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) on the grounds that the proposed conduct would “reduce or distort competition in a number of markets” and that the benefits are “outweighed by the detriments”. More
Ted Baker and Mondaine to add NFC payments to watches
Fashion brand Ted Baker and Swiss luxury watchmaker Mondaine are to integrate NFC payments into a range of watches to enable customers to make payments using technology supplied by Tappy Technologies, which has also partnered with Barclaycard to offer bPay contactless payment technology in the UK... More